If & When
by Rebecca Pierce
Summary: It works, or so they think, fitting together in the sort of way that at first seems implausible because really, they're only colleagues and it's hardly like they've run into danger headlong for each other. (100 theme challenge)


A/N: I'M ALIVE! (sorta)

I wrote this because I find the lack of Ian/Barbara shipping deeply troubling. I love this pair almost as much as my OTP of Rose/Doctor, and I feel like I need to say goodbye to them in my own way because they were fantastic companions and deserve a great sending into whatever their lives hold. As such, there is a deviantart 100 themes challenge, and I'm slowly going to explore their growing (if not sometimes cheesy) budding romance.

I'm a romantic sap-deal with it.

Also, these will range in rating. When there's an M one, I will forewarn in the title of the mini drabble. Otherwise, have fun reading, know I don't own jack shit, and that any comments of the helpful sort (or encouraging) are very welcomed.

* * *

**1. Introduction**

It wasn't like they were meeting for the first time or anything. You'd think that seeing her every day would be more than enough to get used to her presence beside him at every turn on or off the TARDIS. But maybe that's how it began really, with her sneaking under every suspicion he might have of love trickling in.

But then there's feathers—there's gold woven around her neck (where suddenly he believes, his lips should –no, that is inappropriate for God's sake-), linens fit for her title, and a snake woven intricately up the creamy skin of her arm.

(Could he follow it up with his fingers?)

Her back is straight, chin high, and there's mischief in the quirk of her lips.

"_Leave us."_

For a moment he is glad that Susan and the Doctor are before him because he just might've forgotten so and tried to see what this new goddess is capable of with that commanding voice of hers.

(And oh, the things-)

They correct his butchering of an Aztec name but he could care less-there's another name currently engraving itself a little further into his usually scientific mind, and this too, he finds he does not mind as much as he should.

It's not a clear beginning really, but thinking about it with her lying beside him years later, he can't help but think that it certainly made things that much simpler. Her life was in danger (all of theirs, really) and he fought for her honor.

And yes, it does earn him the occasional playful smack on the arm when he points this out (Barbara, really, I swear it was for your honor as high goddess!), as well as the fact that at the very least she can address him properly as _Sir _Ian Chesterton, thank you very much.

Which, as a matter of fact, she does on occasion.

The fact that he ushers the children faster to bed has nothing to do with wanting to remind her just how much he can skew this perception upstairs.

Nothing at all, of course.

* * *

**2. Love**

"It's stupid."

"Oh," Barbara says, and he doesn't need to be looking at her to know she's rolling her eyes. "Aren't you quite the romantic."

The sarcasm is dripping from her words as he paces before the chair she is perched on. There's a book open in her lap but she has given up trying to get past the second paragraph—she's tried three times already. Maybe if she makes it painfully obvious that she had been rudely interrupted, Ian might finally notice.

_-couldn't withstand the heat of their twin suns and so developed a special city called Gall-_

"He can't just let Susan go like that! For goodness' sake! That's his granddaughter he just abandoned!"

Then again, he was never quite good at noting things like that.

She's seen him properly upset before, and so Barbara is unfazed by his frustration. Instead, she closes the book resolutely in her lap before sighing and choosing her words carefully.

"She's in love, Ian. The Doctor-"

"Barbara! You too?" His frown of disappointment is not lost on her, but she decides to shove her annoyance at his statement to the side—for now.

"Yes." Is her simple reply.

Oh, she could be _infuriating_ sometimes.

"She's just a-"

"A young woman who has matured while you weren't looking." She interjects flawlessly, daring him to contradict her as she finally stands. White knuckles shift as she tightens her hold on the book but she refuses to allow any more of her growing ire to show, even if she too is not so sure why this gets under her skin so much.

But then thoughts begin to go in rapidfire motion behind her eyes and her glare is fierce, because could he really be as daft as he's presenting himself right now?

Is it so hard to believe a young woman could choose her own path so freely? Indignation rises, though whether it is more laced with disappointment or shame that she thought better of him is yet to be seen.

"She is mature enough to understand the consequences of her actions, moreso I say, than any of our kind sometimes. And that even through this she has managed to find love-" –he scoffs-"is something that should not be taken as the whim of a child."

Delicately, she sets the book on the chair she has just vacated, avoiding his gaze as her hands curl into light fists at her sides. "Love isn't meant to be understood with a logical mind, Ian. History is wrought with examples of this."

Her brown eyes rise then to meet his and he can't speak, taken aback by the sudden sadness in her gaze.

"All we can do is hope her story turns out better than most."

And though the question lingers on his tongue, he doesn't ask it—why they can only hope. Instead Ian watches her quietly leave the room, properly chastised.

There's a story there, he notes with dismay, and why he feels the urge to fix it he doesn't understand.

At least not until he does without meaning to and Barbara changes her last name.


End file.
